India has struck the software patents provision from a recent piece of IP …

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I've been covering India's relationship to the WIPO and the TRIPS agreement for years on Ars, so I was excited to read earlier today that the Indian parliament has struck the software patents provision from their recently passed act. (See this post, which contains a number of relevant links to past coverage.) Before commenting on the news, I should note that I was loath to link this up earlier in the day because the only source for the news was the official website of the Communist Party of India. But the Indian branch of the Free Software Foundation has posted a letter on this matter on their website, so I'm taking this as independent corroboration. As of right now, I know of no mainstream press outlet that's carrying the story.

The aforementioned communist website has a good rundown of the concessions that the Indian government granted to the Left on this issue. Among the important ones are the (re)implementation of a pre-grant patent opposition process, in which patents can be opposed before they're granted instead of after (as in the US); restrictions on patents aimed at preventing companies from extending them indefinitely by making periodic slight modifications to them (called "ever-greening"); and the aforementioned rejection of software patents.

India is an emerging technology powerhouse, and the country's brave rejection of a much-maligned portion of the West's IP regime is a big win for India and ultimately for the entire software industry. I hope that India's example emboldens others in the two-thirds world to stand up to the WIPO on a whole range of IP issues, from pharmaceuticals to software to digital entertainment.